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What should The Landing be? Owner's vision includes direct river view and residences

You can have your say at Monday's workshop

An artist conception of the new entrance to the Jacksonville Landing. December 6, 2013. Provided by the Jacksonville Landing.

BRUCE LIPSKY/The Times-Union--08/24/10--The Andrew Jackson statue sits in the center of the new roundabout as part of the Laura Street and Independent Drive improvements by the city on Tuesday, August 24, 2010, in Jacksonville, FL. (The Florida Times-Union/Bruce Lipsky) 2010

Provided by the Jacksonville Landing Hogan Street between the Landing and the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts could be renovated as part of a plan to make over the area.

The Jacksonville Landing opened 26 years ago, and there has been discussion about how to change it almost ever since.

“It’s always been a struggle,” said Janice Lowe, the general manager who first arrived at the Landing as an intern in 1989. “When we opened, the whole second floor was a food court. Within two years, we had to close half of it.”

Four of the nine food court spaces are now empty. Though more storefronts are occupied than there used to be, some are at free or reduced rents.

Now, owner Toney Sleiman said he’s ready to make major changes. It won’t be the first time.

When he bought the Landing from the Rouse Co. in 2003 for $5.1 million, he announced big plans. He was going to buy the city property the Landing sits on. He was going to build a 120-slip marina and a bandstand before the 2005 Super Bowl came to town.

None of that happened. And the Landing continues to search for an identity.

“Rouse came in almost 30 years ago to turn it into a festival marketplace with upscale retail,” said Mike Saylor, owner and principal of Black Dog Planning and a member of the Downtown Investment Authority. “But that just hit its stride in Jacksonville and it’s at the Town Center. To be honest, that’s closer to where the disposable income is.”

Terry Lorince, executive director of Downtown Vision, said that even with the Landing’s retail struggles, it’s the icon of downtown.

“It’s the front door, the fact that we present to any visitors,” she said.

On Monday, the Downtown Investment Authority is putting on a workshop at the downtown library to hear what the public wants the Landing to be.

“We believe this is a core asset for downtown, the gateway to downtown,” said Ted Carter, executive director of the City’s Office of Economic Development. “It’s iconic. When you think of Jacksonville, you think of the Landing.”

Sleiman said he’s open to the opinions that come out of Monday’s meeting, but there are several constants in his vision of the Landing’s future:

■ It needs to be physically changed to open it up and provide a view from Laura Street straight to the river.

■ Residences need to be added, whether it’s apartments, condominiums or even a hotel.

■ City money is vital, and the city’s leadership is far more open to working with him than it once was.

With its semicircular shape facing the river, the Landing has been described as turning its back on downtown for years. So cutting a chunk out of the center of the Landing, opening it up both to downtown and the river, has been a longtime point of discussion.

“It was built backward,” Sleiman said.

All the events at the Landing are held on the river side, Lorince pointed out, with no connection to downtown.

“Right now, you have to go inside it,” Saylor said. “Open up the breezeway and you have 360-degree circulation around two buildings, rather than one circulation path inside one building.”

Saylor said the DIA has invited local architects to come to Monday’s workshop with their own ideas of what the Landing could look like.

Sieman talked about condominiums back in 2003. Now he said he’s not sure what type of residences should go there.

“I think the market for residential is stronger than it’s ever been,” he said. “After Monday, I think I go out to the marketplace; I want to go to New York and Atlanta and talk to people who have built them.

“I think I can bring some of those guys back.”

Carter said while the city is open to some type of residential development on the six acres the Landing sits on, it’s not a priority.

“It would have to be phase two or three,” he said.

Sleiman said he didn’t know if the residences would involve a new building or whether it would involve the existing building (as in, living over Hooters during Florida-Georgia weekend.)

But there’s still the question of whether something will be done this time, after so much talk in the past.

“When I went to see the mayor [Alvin Brown], the response was unbelievable,” Sleiman said. “I’ve never had that before.”

Sleiman’s feuds with then-Mayor John Peyton were well publicized at the time.

“I don’t want to talk about the past,” Sleiman said, but he couldn’t help himself. “He just didn’t care about downtown. This mayor does.”

“I think there’s a convergence of focus,” Carter said. “With the mayor’s leadership, Toney, the chamber, DIA. And people like to converge at the Landing. We see it during Florida-Georgia, during the tree lighting.”

There is, of course, the question of public money, which Sleiman said he can’t or won’t do the project without.

The DIA has some money, Saylor said, along with a conduit to make recommendations to City Council. Beyond that, there’s an updated downtown master plan and DIA’s process of getting community redevelopment authority status, which means it could borrow money on its own.

Sleiman suggested increasing the room tax for more funding. But he primarily talked about where the money should go.

“We don’t need to spend $1 million here, $1 million there,” he said. “We need to focus on one thing and make it successful.”

Roger Bull: (904) 359-4296

HOW A NEW LANDING COULD TAKE SHAPE

One of the ideas for The Jacksonville Landing that has been discussed for years is carving a hole in the Landing to link it to downtown and the river. “It was built backward,” owner Toney Sleiman said. The artist drawing (below) shows how it could look as opposed to what it looks like now (above).